African Descent Archives - Page 72 of 74

Yennenga

A legendary figure in West Africa, Yennenga has come to symbolise the epitome of the female warrior, a free and independent woman.

Jazz singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist Anna Marie Wooldridge, known professionally as Abbey Lincoln, made a career of performing both beloved standards and her own original material. Her lyrics often referenced aspects of the American Civil Rights Movement and, later in her career, more philosophical themes.
Her 1957 debut album, Abbey Lincoln’s Affair – A Story of a Girl in Love, was followed by a trio of albums for Riverside Records (1957-1959). In 1960 she sang on the landmark civil rights-focused recording, We Insist! After a tour of Africa in the mid-1970s, she adopted the name Aminata Moseka.
Although she only released a few records during the 1980s, she fulfilled a 10-album contract with Verve Records from the 1990s until her death in 2010, releasing some of her most highly regarded work in her 60s and 70s. In 2003, Lincoln received a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award.
She was also an actor who appeared in television shows and movies such as The Girl Can’t Help It and Gentleman Prefer Blondes. She co-starred in the independent film Nothing But a Man (1964), an independent film written and directed by Michael Roemer. She recieved a Golden Globe nomination for her her co-starring role in For Love of Ivy (1968). Her television work included appearing in Alice Childress’s Wine in the Wilderness, one of 10 episodes of individual dramas written, produced and performed by African-Americans, “On Being Black” produced in 1969 for WGBH-TV Boston.

Abbie Mitchell

Abbie Mitchell was an African-American soprano opera singer who performed the role of Clara in the original production of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in 1935, and was also the first to record “Summertime” from that musical. At age 14, she was cast by African-American composer Will Marion Cook and lyricist Paul Laurence Dunbar for a role in their one-act musical comedy Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk (1898), which ran for the whole season at the Casino Roof Garden. The 14-year-old married the 29-year-old Cook in 1898 and bore him two children before her 20th birthday. Mitchell appeared in the lead role in Cook’s Jes Lak White Folks (1899) and performed in his production The Southerners (1904).
In London Mitchell appeared in the 1903 musical In Dahomey (with music by Cook). Mitchell received international acclaim for her performance, and was invited to appear with the company in a Royal Command Performance for King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at Buckingham Palace.
She later performed with the “Black Patti’s Troubadours”, and in the 1908 operetta The Red Moon. In 1913, she appeared in the film Lime Kiln Field Day, but it was never completed or released. In 1919, Mitchell went to Europe with Cook’s Southern Syncopated Orchestra, as well as appearing in concert and in operas in New York.
Mitchell appeared in several Broadway plays including “In Abraham’s Bosom” (1926), “Coquette” (1927) with Helen Hayes, and “The Little Foxes” (1939) with Tallulah Bankhead. Mitchell was best known for her last musical role on the stage, performing in the role of “Clara” in the premiere of Porgy and Bess (1935). After this, she taught and coached many singers in New York and appeared in non-musical dramatic roles on the stage, and taught at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
Lee De Forest made a short film of Mitchell singing, Songs of Yesteryear (1922), using his DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process; the film is preserved in the Library of Congress’s Maurice Zouary film collection.

Touria Chaoui

Touria Chaoui was Morocco’s first female pilot.

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander was the first African-American to receive a doctorate in economics in the United States (1921), and the first woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Zelia N. Breaux

Zelia N. Breaux was an American music teacher and musician who played the trumpet, violin and piano who organized the first music department at Oklahoma’s Langston University, as well as the school’s first orchestra.

Lula Parrish

Lula Parrish risked her job and her life by marching for civil rights with more than 100 other African-American teachers in the Selma Teachers March on January 22 1965.

Adah Thoms

Adah Belle Samuels Thoms was an African-American nurse who co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and served as president from 1916 to 1923.

Safi Faye

Safi Faye is a Senegalese film director and ethnologist who has directed several documentary and fiction films focusing on rural life in Senegal. She was the first woman from sub-Saharan Africa to direct a commercially distributed feature film, Kaddu Beykat (1975).

Myra Davis Hemmings

Delta Sigma Theta, a service sorority for black women, was founded at Howard University in Washington, DC in 1912, with Myra Davis Hemmings of San Antonio elected as its first president.